Read This: The Lonely Island did a 10th anniversary oral history of Popstar

Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer reflected on the highs (and mild disappointments) of their 10-year-old cult comedy.

By William Hughes  |  June 6, 2026 | 6:40pm
The Lonely Island in Popstar
Film News Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Read This: The Lonely Island did a 10th anniversary oral history of Popstar

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping—something our colleagues over at Paste memorialized back in January with a ranking of every silly, Bin Laden-fucking song in The Lonely Island’s cult comedy. Now, though, the trio has done their own reflection on the film’s enduring appeal/non-enduring box office presence, with Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer contributing an in-depth oral history of the film to IndieWire this week.

The trio paint a picture of a truly chaotic movie shoot, powered in part by the support of comedy kingmaker Judd Apatow, who helped line up many of the movie’s music industry cameos. (Taccone: “I remember sitting across from Mariah Carey, who I’ve had the biggest crush on since I was like 12, and being like, ‘Can you say that you like our stuff?’ Nas is one of the best rappers alive, and we were all giggling going, ‘Can you say that we influenced you?’”) That includes moments where the film’s nested realities started to overlap, as when Samberg appeared in character at a Maroon 5 concert (fans were asked “Please act like he’s the biggest star in the world—and don’t yell Andy!”) and ended up needing an IV after an 11-day run of performing the film’s fake concerts at the Los Angeles Forum.

And while the conversation can’t cover every strange and beautiful tributary the film contains—which is to say, they never talk about Bill Hader’s Flatliners scene—that actually sounds pretty reflective of the film itself, which involved cutting down a mammoth 300 hours of footage into a workable movie. “I shot with Norah Jones and made Ed Sheeran play Conner4Real songs,” Taccone notes at one point. “And we didn’t put it in. It was so fucking dope. I still feel bad.”

Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer also reflect on the film’s dismal box office performance—although they sound more bummed about its marketing, with Schaffer noting, “We got kind of sad when the marketing made it feel like a Justin Bieber thing. “Never Stop, Never Stopping” is a very funny title, and we didn’t say no to it—but they added that. Our title was Conner4Real.” As for the financials, Schaffer notes that, “I do think if it’d been a hit, Judd would’ve immediately said, “All right, let’s brainstorm until we have our next movie idea.” It would’ve been a different trajectory.” But all three sound happy with the end result, as Taccone concludes, “I think l’ll look back on it more and more fondly as I age into a decrepit old man.”

You can read the full oral history here.

 

 
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